


We'll Find New Things To Burn

by sdwolfpup



Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 01:05:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: Post-Zuggalos, Warren and Murphy discover a new connection.





	We'll Find New Things To Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Songs: Ohia, "Being In Love"

Murphy had the dream every night after Lucy died.

It was the same each time: He was in a vast, empty plain in shades of ochre and black and Lucy and Warren were there, too. Lucy was in the middle, with Warren on her right and himself on Lucy's left. She held Warren's hand and reached for him, face contorted and pleading. She was saying something but all he could hear was the rush of blood in his own head. She was just out of reach and he couldn't move his feet though he didn't know why. Murphy would stretch, the muscles of his arm aching with the effort to take Lucy's hand. Then their fingertips would touch and a rush of terror would flow through him and he knew it wasn't his or hers; it was Warren's. Lucy would melt and then he'd be holding Warren's hand across the impossible distance and her eyes would burn with the screams her mouth held back.

He'd wake up then, face sweaty and heart pounding like a wild animal in his chest. And every time he'd find Warren awake, staring at him but not seeing him at all. He was still too full of every awful feeling that had come with watching Lucy's body go up in flames, so every night he rolled over and ignored her and bitterly hoped she was in her own private hell, too. 

The night after the Zuggalos, though - after Warren had agreed to Newmerica and sat silent the entire rest of the afternoon - when Murphy woke from his dream he sat up instead and returned her distant gaze. The others were all asleep still. They always were. He only ever had this dream the hours Warren was on watch. 

Warren stared back, blinked once and caught her breath on a hitching sob, but whatever she was seeing it still wasn't him. 

“Warren,” he whispered, waving his hand in front of her face. “Hey, wake up. Or whatever.”

Her hands pressed flat into the ground and her muscled arms went rigid with the pressure, but she still stared through Murphy instead of at him. A single tear slipped down her cheek. 

“Warren. Roberta.” Murphy snapped his fingers at her ear and she startled, snapping her head back. 

“Murphy,” she breathed, reaching out for him. Fresh from his dream, he couldn't bring himself to touch her and her hand grasped air before falling limply to her side. 

“Welcome back,” he said, speaking low so the others didn't wake. 

“Was I...gone?”

“Not physically. But your mind was definitely bye-bye.” He peered at her. “Where were you?”

Warren shook her head and stared down at her empty hands. “It doesn't matter,” she whispered so quietly he almost missed it. Then, louder: “Thanks for waking me.”

Murphy shrugged nonchalantly. “Just doing my job as the new leader of the group.” Warren's brows lifted so high he thought they'd disappear. “We need someone who won't poof on us without warning,” he said defensively. “And I'm clearly the right choice. I did run an entire community dedicated to me a couple of years ago, in case you forgot.”

“You mean the one with the creepy zombie blends? I didn't,” she said wryly. “I don't think 10k will go along with this.”

“Then he can go on his own.”

Warren tilted her head. “Not very leader-like.”

Murphy rolled his eyes and moved to sit next to Warren. They both leaned back against the rock of the overhang the group was camping under. Murphy examined the pale skin of his hands in the moonlight. He'd grown used to looking normal again, regardless of whatever weirdness still lurked inside. Warren sighed and brought her knees to her chest. Doc snored softly a few feet away.

“Were you really going to marry that Zuggalo guy?” Murphy asked suddenly.

She looked at him, her face scrunched with disdain. “Murphy do you really think I give one shit about whether some crazy Zuggalo priest says he's married me off?”

“Good point. We don't exactly have civil unions anymore.”

Warren looked down at her left hand and the bare ring finger. He heard her say, “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Then I won't ask you.”

She looked up. “Won't ask me what?”

“You said you didn't want to talk about it.”

“Murphy.” Warren's eyes were big and round now. “I didn't _say_ anything.”

“I clearly heard-” He blinked. “Oh.”

She stared at him, eyes bright in the moonlight. _Can you hear this?_

He nodded, mute.

“Holy shit. How is that possible?”

“Lucy could feel you because you have my blood in you. And-”

“And she bit you. You think that...connected us?”

“I do.”

“Holy shit,” Warren repeated. “Wait, can you talk to me, too, or is this a one-sided thing?”

Murphy focused and thought, _Hello?_ , at her loudly.

She flinched. _You don't have to yell._

“Hold on.” Murphy stood and walked to the far side of the overhang, carefully avoiding 10k sprawled spread-eagled and Sergeant Lily curled in a tight ball. It was dark here, and in the distance Warren in the slanting moonlight looked like some sort of magical princess with her white hair and sharp, beautiful face. He shook his head sharply. “Focus,” he whispered to himself. 

Then he stared intently at Warren and thought, _Can you hear me?_ When she didn't respond he yelled it again in his head.

She nodded. Faintly he heard, _I hear you._

_You have to shout._

_Better?_

_Better._ He moved back and settled at her side again. “So you didn't do this with Lucy?”

“I never even thought to try.”

Murphy stared at his hands again, remembered his dream. “When I pulled you back earlier, wherever you were, you saw Lucy didn't you?” 

Warren hesitated. “Yes.”

“And me.”

“Yes.” He felt her dark eyes on him, but couldn't meet her stare. “I must have pulled you in with me.” 

The memory of her terror shot through him like an arrow, boring a hole through the grief that pulsed inside him and pushed at the edge of his skin and left him raw. “Do you feel that terror all the time, or just in your visions?”

She tensed and clasped her arms around herself. “It's strongest when I'm in the visions.”

“But you're going to Newmerica.”

“If I go off on my own, I'm afraid the others will follow. I can't lead everyone to their deaths.”

Murphy looked at his arm, felt rather than saw the bites his daughter had left. “And after we reach Newmerica?”

Warren smiled, a ghost of the feeling rather than the reality. “It's time for your watch,” she said. She squeezed his arm and as always the feel of her strong hand made him warm. He'd had enough dark fantasies about her that the simplest touch conjured them. Even when he hated her, he wanted her. Her hand tightened around his arm. “You've got a dirty mind, Murphy,” she said in a low whisper.

Murphy flushed and she finally pulled her hand away, and he felt weirdly bereft. “You shouldn't be nosing around in it,” he muttered. 

She was breathing harder, though, and it took all his willpower not to stare at her breasts as they moved with it. 

“You didn't exactly stop the Zuggalo wedding either,” she said unexpectedly. 

Off-balance, embarrassed, Murphy threw his hands wide. “I was being electrocuted every time I opened my mouth!” he hissed.

“And if you weren't? Would you have stepped in?”

He shoved his hand through his hair, grumbled “I guess,” under his breath. 

“Good boy.” She patted his cheek and he felt the sparks of attraction that simmered under her skin. Murphy cast her a questioning glance. “After we reach Newmerica,” she said, “we should find a private place to talk more about that dirty mind of yours.” She licked her lips and his brain shorted out. 

She'd settled back in her sleeping spot before Murphy could form words again, overwhelmed by the images that flashed like a dreamy porno in his head: Warren naked in the moonlight, Warren on top of him, Warren under him and desperate for it. 

_Jesus._ Murphy scrubbed his face with his hands, as though he could pull the images out physically. 

Once he'd gotten his thoughts back under his own control he tentatively asked, _Warren?_ through their link. 

After a few quiet seconds he heard, _What? I'm trying to sleep._

He wanted to drag her out of there into the dark forest for their private talk now. He wanted to yell at her for Lucy's death. He wanted to beg her forgiveness for everything terrible he'd ever done and had yet to do. There were too many days left to Newmerica, too much history to not know that they'd fuck it all up somehow. 

_Good night,_ he said. The rest he would leave for Newmerica.


End file.
